A Touch of Notoriety

chapter ELEVEN



BETH’S TOTAL MISERY continued during their silent breakfast together the following morning, after a restless and sleepless night on her part. Although Raphael, apart from that brooding silence, behaved and appeared as coolly distant as ever, his expression harsh, despite his casual appearance in a pair of black denims and blue shirt.

Not that either of them ate any breakfast, the aching pain in the pit of Beth’s stomach robbing her of any appetite for food, and Raphael seeming equally uninterested as the two of them just drank several cups of coffee together in that total silence.

Raphael finally spoke as they cleared away at the end of the meal. ‘Cesar sent the jet for us overnight, and it is now refuelling and waiting at the private airport in preparation for flying us back to Argentina today.’

That Raphael couldn’t wait to get back to Buenos Aires, before no doubt discharging all responsibility for her, was more than obvious from his frostily aloof manner and the arctic chill of his gaze as he looked down his arrogant nose at her.

Beth gave a tight smile as she straightened from loading the dishwasher, ironically wearing similar clothes to Raphael: black denims and a green cotton shirt. ‘I guess those alterations to my house weren’t necessary, after all!’

Raphael’s eyes narrowed. ‘They will be very necessary when you decide to return to England.’

‘And when do you think that will be?’ she came back dryly. ‘If Cesar has his way, his little sister will never be allowed to leave Argentina ever again!’

Raphael scowled darkly. ‘I had thought you had more self-determination than to allow Cesar to dictate your movements in future.’

Beth rounded on him fiercely, her eyes flashing darkly and her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

‘How dare you talk to me like that? I haven’t finished yet,’ she added warningly as Raphael would have spoken. ‘How do you have the nerve to stand there, talking down to me because I’ve decided to at least try to be Esther and Carlos’s daughter, when your relationship with your own father is so obviously non-existent?’

Beth had spent quite a lot of the previous night sitting in a bedroom chair staring out of the window as she thought about her future as Gabriela Navarro—when she wasn’t thinking about Raphael and reliving the humiliation of his rejection of her, and his terse goodnight to her once they were back at the estate, that was! For all her words of rebellion before she and Raphael left Argentina, Beth simply couldn’t see the Navarro family happily letting her trot off back to England, and her house and job here, once Grace and Cesar were married.

Quite what she was supposed to do as Gabriela Navarro, Beth had no idea, never having had any dealings with heiresses, Argentinian or otherwise. But she had a feeling that it would involve hours and hours of shopping for suitable clothes, so that she could be taken out to suitable parties and dinner parties, and be introduced to suitable people. People as rich and privileged as the Navarro family.

All of which sounded like total misery to Beth.

At the same time as she knew she owed it to Esther and Carlos, her real parents, to at least try to fit into their world. To try to become their daughter again. Even if it was the last thing she felt like doing.

The first thing she felt like doing was getting as far away from Raphael Cordoba, and those humiliating memories of last night, as she possibly could!

And instead she was now going to spend hours and hours on a plane with him, suffering in silence while he continued to ignore her...

‘I was not talking down to you—’

‘It certainly sounded like it to me,’ she came back determinedly. ‘And from the little I know about your own situation, you appear to have walked out on your own family years ago, and never looked back!’

‘That is not true.’ A nerve pulsed in Raphael’s tightly clenched jaw. ‘I see all of my sisters whenever my other responsibilities allow.’

‘Which doesn’t appear to be very often,’ Beth scorned. ‘And you don’t see your father at all. Why is that, Raphael?’

Raphael was beginning to wish he hadn’t told Beth anything about his family. Most especially of the strained relationship that now existed between himself and his father.

‘Or is it your stepmother you’re avoiding?’ Beth prompted astutely. ‘Maybe because you begrudge your father the happiness of a second marriage?’

‘My father’s second marriage ended some years ago,’ Raphael bit out tautly. ‘And the only thing I begrudged was having his young wife make sexual advances to me—’ Raphael broke off abruptly as he realised his anger had made him say far too much. Reveal far too much. ‘It is time I—’

‘Your stepmother made sexual advances to you?’ Beth repeated incredulously.

Raphael easily read the all-too-familiar tenacity of Beth’s expression. ‘Yes,’ he hissed.

‘She tried to seduce you? Even though she was married to your father?’

‘I think “seduce” is too polite a word for what Margarita intended in regard to her stepson, from the age of sixteen to nineteen, every time he returned for the school holidays,’ he drawled scathingly.

‘You were only sixteen when she first tried to seduce you?’ Beth’s eyes were wide. ‘Why didn’t you tell your father what was happening? Explain the situation to him and—’

‘And what, Beth?’ Raphael moved away impatiently. ‘Expect that he would believe my word for what had happened over the word of the young and beautiful wife with whom he was totally besotted?’ He eyed her mockingly.

‘Your father knew about her—her sexual interest in you?’

‘He eventually knew Margarita’s version of things, yes,’ Raphael bit out flatly.

‘How?’

‘You really do not want to know—’

‘Yes. Yes, I really do, Raphael.’ Beth nodded determinedly.

He sighed his impatience with her stubbornness. ‘Remember that you were the one who asked me to tell you this,’ he warned harshly as he drew in a deep breath before speaking again. ‘I was out in the stables one day and she came into the stall where I was working, unbuttoning her blouse as she did so, revealing that she wore nothing beneath. I told her—as I had told her so many times before—that I was not interested in her in that way. She left her blouse partway unbuttoned and came towards me, her intentions obvious in her gaze and the lascivious expression on her face.’ Raphael’s own expression was bleak as he remembered the day that had changed his life for ever. ‘I was too busy trying to fend off her attentions to realise that someone else had entered the stables, but apparently Margarita was not. To my surprise she suddenly pulled away from me and began screaming as she started pulling and tearing her blouse. By the time my father had hurried to the stall where we both were, Margarita had mussed her hair into a tangled mess and ripped several buttons from her blouse, the material itself gaping open to reveal her bared breasts.’

‘Giving your father the impression that you had attacked her...’

‘Yes.’

‘But didn’t you explain to him that you were completely innocent, that Margarita had done this to herself? That this wasn’t the first time she had tried to proposition you?’

‘How truly naïve you are, Beth.’ Raphael eyed her pityingly. ‘Of course I told him those things. But what should he believe, the evidence of his own eyes—Margarita’s dishevelled appearance, her tears and distress, her accusations that I had tried to rape her—or the son who stood before him with a raging erection and denying any attraction for his young and beautiful stepmother? I was nineteen years old, Beth,’ he added hardly as her eyes now widened in shock. ‘An age when a woman’s bared shoulder could give me an erection, let alone a pair of magnificent breasts!’

Beth’s cheeks felt hot with embarrassment at Raphael’s last comment. Shocked by the other things he had told her, but definitely embarrassed at hearing he had been aroused by his stepmother’s advances, in spite of himself. ‘Did your father throw you out?’

‘Of course,’ Raphael grated harshly. ‘And I was only too happy to go, believe me. But not before I had made arrangements for Rosa to live with my sister Delores. My sister was the only reason I had returned to the ranch for as long as I had after my father’s second marriage. Because of Rosa’s slowness Margarita took delight in being cruel to her at times when my father was not looking.’

‘She sounds an absolute bitch!’ Beth muttered disgustedly.

‘Yes,’ he confirmed heavily. ‘Have you heard enough now?’ he rasped scathingly. ‘Can we now both get on with our preparations to leave England today?’

‘Not yet.’ Beth gave a distracted shake of her head. ‘Okay, I accept that at nineteen you probably weren’t mature enough to deal with someone as vicious and manipulative as your stepmother so obviously was, but what about the last fourteen years? Have you been back, explained the situation to your father?’

He eyed her impatiently. ‘As it happens, I did not need to do so.’

‘Oh?’

Raphael grimaced. ‘My father was less inclined to believe Margarita when, several years later, she tried to use the same excuse after he found her naked, in their marriage bed, in the arms of one of his gauchos.’

‘So you and your father are reconciled?’

A nerve pulsed in the tightness of his jaw. ‘No.’

A frown appeared between her eyes. ‘Why not?’

‘Because we are Cordobas,’ Raphael snapped.

Her expression grew rueful. ‘Meaning that your father is just as arrogant and proud as you are?’

‘We are Cordobas,’ he repeated, his eyes having turned an icy blue.

‘I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in my life before!’ Beth eyed him impatiently.

‘That is because everything is so very black-and-white to you,’ Raphael drawled derisively.

Beth felt slightly stung by his ‘black-and-white’ comment coming so soon after his accusation of her naiveté. And maybe she was both of those things, but it still hurt to have Raphael say it so cuttingly. ‘This situation is black-and-white,’ she insisted. ‘Your father made a mistake fourteen years ago, a mistake you’re both too proud to admit, and reconcile your differences. How old is your father, Raphael?’ He frowned.

‘What does that have to do with anything?’

‘A lot, if you ever intend to heal the rift between the two of you.’ Beth grimaced.

‘And why would I wish to do that?’

‘Because he’s your father. Because he made a mistake, a mistake he’s paid for dearly, first by losing his only son, and then the woman who had betrayed him. Because,’ she continued firmly as Raphael would have spoken, ‘in spite of everything, you love him...’

He drew himself up stiffly. ‘This is none of your concern—’

‘Of course it isn’t,’ Beth accepted impatiently. ‘Except—’

‘Can you be ready to leave in one hour’s time?’ Raphael rasped harshly.

‘End of conversation?’ she guessed ruefully.

Raphael nodded abruptly. ‘End of conversation.’

Beth studied him closely for several seconds, knowing by his closed expression that he had no intention of discussing this subject any more with her today. If ever.

She nodded wearily. ‘My bags are already packed and waiting upstairs.’ She had been up before dawn—after sleeping fitfully for only a couple of hours—to pack her things in readiness for what she knew was their imminent departure to Argentina.

‘We leave in one hour,’ Raphael repeated harshly before striding forcefully out of the kitchen.

Beth’s shoulders slumped the moment she was alone, tears scalding the backs of her eyes, and she reached out to grasp the edge of the kitchen table as her knees threatened to buckle beneath her, her conversation with Raphael, and the strain that existed between them now, having taken an emotional toll on her she was simply too tired to cope with.

Despite those shocking revelations in their conversation just now, Raphael had, to all intents and purposes, become a stranger to her these past twelve hours. He was no longer that mocking man she had known in Argentina, or the diligent bodyguard whose presence had annoyed and yet comforted her, both in Argentina and since they’d come to England. And he certainly wasn’t the sensual lover of the night before, the man who had driven her insane with pleasure. Instead he was a man who now made it clear, with every word he spoke, that he wanted nothing more to do with her on a personal level.

And the pain of that realisation was worse than the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach—

‘Sorry, Miss Navarro, I thought Raphael was in here?’

Beth turned slowly to find that Rodney had let himself into the house by the kitchen door without her even being aware of it. Because she was so lost in her own misery. The misery of being in love with a man who made it more than clear that he didn’t want to be with her.

She straightened determinedly as she gave the security guard a forced smile. ‘I think he went to Cesar’s study.’

‘That’s fine.’ The burly man nodded. ‘Perhaps you can tell me what time we’re leaving for the airport.’

Beth stilled. ‘What time we’re leaving for the airport?’

Rodney gave her a reassuring smile. ‘I’m taking over as head of your security detail as from today.’

Beth felt all the colour drain from her cheeks. ‘You are?’ She knew she sounded like a parrot, and a slightly ridiculous one at that, but she was too stunned by what Rodney had just said to be able to pretend otherwise.

Rodney nodded happily, obviously completely unaware of Beth’s distress at his disclosure. ‘Raphael and I arranged it with Cesar last night.’

Last night? During Raphael’s telephone conversation with Cesar at the inn, or after the humiliation Beth had suffered at Raphael’s obvious rush to get them out of there once he had discovered she was still a virgin and, as such, untouchable?

Did it really matter when Raphael had arranged for Rodney to take over her security? The fact that he had done so spoke volumes; Raphael was no longer willing to even continue acting as her bodyguard.

She gave Rodney a tight smile. ‘That’s nice. Have you been to Argentina before?’

‘No, but I’m really looking forward to it.’ He grinned.

‘Why don’t we sit down and have a coffee together while we wait for Raphael to—to finish whatever it is he’s doing, and I can tell you the little I know about it?’ Beth suggested with a lightness she was far from feeling.

‘That sounds great!’ Rodney pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table while Beth busied herself pouring them both a coffee before sitting down opposite him and commencing to tell him some of the sights she had seen on her last visit to Argentina.

* * *

Which was precisely where Raphael found the two of them when he entered the kitchen forty minutes later.

He came to a halt in the kitchen doorway as he heard Beth laughing at something Rodney had just said to her. A relaxed and companionable laugh, so unlike the tension that had existed between himself and Beth since the previous evening.

Raphael still felt slightly numbed by how close he had come to taking Beth’s precious virginity. And he was disgusted with himself for the intensity, the raw carnality, of his lovemaking. Not only was Beth an innocent, but Raphael had since realised, as his thoughts had gone over and over the sequence of their lovemaking last night, Beth wasn’t just still a virgin but completely physically inexperienced.

Oh, no doubt she had shared a few passionate kisses with young men of her own age in the past, maybe even a little light petting, but nothing along the scale of Raphael’s depth of lovemaking; in those circumstances, he was lucky she hadn’t run screaming from the inn in total terror of his sexual demands!

He also, despite his denials, felt decidedly uncomfortable about their conversation earlier, in regard to his lack of decisive action regarding the rift between himself and his father. Perhaps it was time, after all, that he did as Beth had suggested and buried his pride before visiting his father?

Although the stricken look that came over Beth’s face as she glanced up and saw him standing in the doorway didn’t encourage Raphael into thinking of sharing that decision with her.

Any more than Raphael would wish for her to be aware of the feelings of jealousy that had ripped through him at the sight of her laughing so naturally with the man he had chosen to take his place as her personal bodyguard.

Cesar had been far from happy with his decision when the two men had spoken on the subject on the telephone the night before, but the uncharacteristic jealousy Raphael was feeling now, because he had only found Beth laughing and talking with another man—a man moreover who was also only a Navarro employee—only confirmed that Raphael had made the right decision in stepping down. He could not protect Beth, in the way she needed to be protected, when he only had to look at her to have his head flooded with memories of their lovemaking, and to burn with an inner desire to make love to her again.

No, his decision to step down had been the right one—even if it gave him an ache in his chest just thinking of handing Beth’s future welfare over to any man other than himself.

Raphael drew himself up determinedly as he strode briskly into the kitchen, his gaze glacial as he glanced at the now-standing Rodney. ‘Edward is ready to take us all to the airport if the two of you have quite finished your...conversation?’

Beth’s eyes widened as she heard the condemnation in Raphael’s tone. What the hell was wrong with him now? Now? There was nothing different about Raphael’s briskly businesslike behaviour towards her this morning than any of the other mornings they had spent together.

She gave a cool nod. ‘I’ll just go upstairs and collect my bags.’

‘They are already in the car,’ Raphael informed her dismissively.

She gave a saccharin-sweet smile. ‘Of course they are.’

Blue eyes narrowed on her piercingly. ‘And what is that supposed to mean?’

Beth raised mocking brows. ‘Exactly what it sounded like—admiration for Raphael Cordoba’s efficiency.’

His lips thinned. ‘Rodney has already explained that he will be taking over your security as from today?’

‘Oh, yes.’ She nodded coolly. ‘And I can’t tell you how nice it is to know that I get on so well with the man I will be spending so much time with in future.’

Raphael’s jaw clenched. He had intended to tell Beth over breakfast of the necessary changes that had been made in her security detail—if not the reason for them!—but she had looked so pale and unapproachable when she joined him in the kitchen earlier, followed by his discomfort after their conversation regarding his estrangement from his father, that he had thought it better to wait until they were on the plane before breaking that particular piece of news to her. He had not anticipated that Rodney would see her first and impart that information to her.

Information which, if Beth’s coolly contemptuous attitude towards Raphael now was any indication, she had totally misinterpreted. A misunderstanding, and attitude, that Rodney’s presence made it impossible for Raphael to try and explain or change. And asking to talk to Beth alone—being alone with her for any reason—would not be a wise move on Raphael’s part when he still desired her so deeply!

‘As we are all ready, we may as well leave,’ he bit out tautly instead.

‘The sooner the better,’ Beth added hardly.

Raphael gave her a long and searching glance. She really did look very pale. To the point of delicacy. Far too much so, he believed, for it to be attributed solely to the tension that now existed between the two of them.

Could he possibly have physically hurt Beth last night, with the intensity of his lovemaking? Had he been too rough with her? Too demanding?

‘Would you wait outside for us in the car?’ Raphael instructed Rodney abruptly, his gaze still fixed unwaveringly on the pallor of Beth’s face.

She looked displeased at the idea of being alone with him. ‘Oh, but—’

‘Rodney,’ Raphael prompted hardly, waiting until the other man had left the kitchen before turning back to a wide-eyed Beth. ‘Are you feeling quite well?’

‘Is that your not so polite way of telling me I look awful this morning?’ she came back challengingly.

‘Stop it, Beth!’ Raphael reached out to lightly grasp the tops of her arms as he shook her slightly. ‘You are very pale, that is all. I did not...hurt you, last night?’

Beth looked up at him sharply, her gaze searching on that aristocratically handsome face. Had Raphael somehow guessed? Did he know how she felt about him—?

‘Physically?’ His next harsh comment completely alleviated that particular worry.

She grimaced. ‘I’m a little sore. But otherwise, no, you didn’t hurt me.’

A frown creased his brow. ‘I did not know—I was a little rough with you, considering your...innocence.’

‘I really don’t want to talk about this any more, Raphael!’ Beth pulled out of his grasp, her gaze avoiding meeting that piercing blue one. ‘I’m pale because I didn’t sleep well, that’s all. I’ll sleep on the plane and be absolutely fine by the time we reach Buenos Aires.’ She hoped.

That nagging pain in the pit of her stomach seemed to have spread to her side, too, now, and increased in intensity. So maybe their depth of lovemaking last night had somehow set off some sort of reaction inside her?

How embarrassing was that?

‘Could we just go now, Raphael?’ Her eyes flashed darkly as she looked up at him challengingly, heaving a relieved sigh as he gave a brief nod before indicating with his hand that she should precede him outside.

And with any luck, Beth could escape into that bedroom at the back of the Navarro plane as soon as they had taken off, bury her head beneath the bedcovers, and just sleep for the whole tedious journey to Buenos Aires.

Well away from the disturbing Raphael Cordoba...